‘Godzilla Minus One’ Wins Best VFX

Godzilla Minus One followed up its immense success at the Japanese Academy Awards with a stunning upset victory at this evening’s Academy Awards in Los Angeles, by taking home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the incredible scenes of destruction on a tiny budget, all things considered, combined with the devastating exploration of post-traumatic stress on a postwar Japan, still reeling from the fallout — physical and psychological — of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, made for an affecting, and effective, piece of moviemaking.

The movie ended up grossing over $106 million worldwide off an estimated budget of $10 million to $15 million, with that budget making the victory in the VFX category all the more impressive. Yamazaki told Collider’s Steve Weintraub last month that 35 people were responsible for 610 VFX shots in just eight months.

Will We Get a ‘Godzilla Minus One’ Sequel?

The contemporary trend, particularly noticeable in Toho’s Godzilla movie series, involves pitting Godzilla against another giant monster, casting him in a more heroic light compared to his depiction in Minus One. Unlike the typical monster movie, Minus One is centered around character-driven drama, raising the question of how to successfully balance these elements. This balance is something Yamazaki is interested in exploring.

“I don’t know that anyone has pulled off a more serious tone of
kaiju
-versus-
kaiju
with human drama, and that challenge is something that I’d like to explore. When you have movies that feature [
kaiju
battles], I think it’s very easy to put the spotlight and the camera on this massive spectacle, and it detaches itself from the human drama component. I would need to make sure that the human drama and whatever’s happening between [the] kaiju
both have meaning, and both are able to affect one another in terms of plot development.”

Godzilla Minus One, in the wake of its stunning box office return, became the most financially successful Japanese live-action movie in U.S. history. On top of that, it stands as the highest grossing foreign film in the U.S. since the pandemic and the most successful international movie in the U.S. over the last 24 years, highlighting its broad popularity and the demand for premium international films on top of it. Remarkably, amidst its widespread critical acclaim, the inclusion of an atomic fire-breathing monster causing destruction, coupled with its subtle and introspective character exploration, is almost an aside by the time you get down to it.

Stay tuned to Collider for news on when Godzilla Minus One can be streamed at home.